Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi declared on June 22 that on the question of visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, he did not feel it necessary to succumb to pressure from China and the Republic of Korea (ROK).

The attitude he clearly stated obviously referred to his meeting with ROK President Roh Moo-hyun two days ago. The two-hour talks became a heated debate over the question of history. The result indicated that the reason for the failure to reach consensus between the two sides lies in Koizumi's lack of intention to give up his visit to the Shrine. S. Korean people acted strongly to this, and President Who Moo-hyun also stressed that rhetoric on peace, security and exchange alone cannot guarantee future peace. Apparently, on the question of outlook on history, Koizumi is still an unqualified student.

What is history? According to usual explanations, history should consist at least of the following two contents: first, the events experienced by humankind; second, the records and studies on such past events. The former refers to the objective reality, the latter contains the conception of history, that is, the descendants' views on and attitudes toward these past events. People's attitude toward some major past events actually reflects their views on the present and the future. Just as a survivor of the Nazi massacre once said: No one can escape from the net of history; superficially it seems you've escaped, but in the end you'll still find yourself captured.

This argument can be easily understood to Asian and European people who have personally experienced the holocaust of World War II. Those war criminals tried after the war had long ago ceased to be only individual persons, rather, they have become the symbols of human butchers and crimes. Their names represent the extremely tragic anti-human crimes such as the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Nanjing massacre. The trials put on them after the war were beyond verdicts on individual crimes, becoming a just move castigating the souls of warmongers and their followers, and spreading the seeds of peace.

In Europe, those cemeteries buried with SS (Schutzstaffel) soldiers and Nazi war criminals have for many years been the forbidden zone to politicians. No politician dares or wishes, as does the Japanese Prime Minister, to frequently visit there. In some graveyards, even the emergence of the names of war criminals would spark political disturbances. When Ronald Reagan was in the presidential office, he, out of the need of Cold War, once went to a German cemetery buried with the war dead. Because it was revealed by the press that SS soldiers were buried in the cemetery, so Reagan's trip to the graveyard aroused strong opposition from the international community. Despite his low-key activities, as seen in the fact that he first went to a nearby Nazi concentration camp, and then to the cemetery for eight minutes, though he emphasized all day long that one should not forget the crimes of the Nazis, he finally paid quite a big political price for that. The "cemetery disturbance" is, to date, still widely regarded as a stain in Reagan's political career. An American web surfer put it well: "A politician's doing, of course, carries a different symbolic flavor from that of an ordinary person. It is precisely because of this that Asian countries oppose Japanese Prime Minister's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine where the souls of war criminals are honored, and today we, too, will not forgive Reagan's trip to the cemetery."

There is a boundary for forgiveness. Visit to the Yasukuni Shrine absolutely cannot be simply equated to commemoration of ordinary soldiers killed in action, as argued by certain Japanese. In the eyes of Asian people, shrine visit means commemoration of the crimes of aggressors. It directly concerns how the Asian people treat that phase of history, and how they look upon today's Japan. Without settling this issue, it would be difficult for Japan to improve its image, and it would be impossible to convince Asian countries of the pledge that "war will not be launched for the second time". Koizumi should bear in mind another famous remark: "I do not live in the past, but the past lives in my heart."

Carried on the front page of People's Daily Overseas Edition, June 23, this article is translated by People's Daily Online